Annihilation (2018)

  This is one of the best sci-fi films I've seen in a while.  It had everything:  weird alien shit, beautiful alien shit, badass science ladies, body horror, and certain, inevitable doom.

Lena (Natalie Portman) believes her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac) was killed on a secret mission for the military until he just shows up inside the house and starts coughing up blood.  Kane is whisked away to a hush-hush facility on the edge of The Shimmer, a mysterious bubble of unknown origin that seemed to coincide with a meteor hitting a small lighthouse on the coast.  The facility's psychologist, Dr. Ventress (Jennifer Jason Leigh), tells Lena that Kane was the only person to ever come out of The Shimmer and they don't know really anything about it.  Of course Lena volunteers to go inside and figure out what's happening along with a physicist (Tessa Thompson), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez) and an anthropologist (Tuva Novotny).  And then things get weird.

It feels like a slow burn except I kind of lost all sense of space and time watching it.  I was caught up in the story and even the parts that I figured out before the reveal seemed like a natural progression, not an annoying retread.  Portman is great in this but I expected nothing less.  Isaac isn't given a whole lot to do here but it's not about him and he knows it.  Come to think of it, it was really nice to see the roles reversed where the dude is helpless and serves only to provide motivation for the female lead.  David Gyasi was excellent, as well, as Lena's colleague.  He has a magnetic presence on-screen. Apparently he was in Cloud Atlas but there was a lot going on in that movie so I hope you'll forgive me not recognizing him.

If you like sci-fi, you should definitely check out this film.  It's based on a trilogy of books and as of the last time I checked, there's no plans to make the other two into films, so purists can breathe a little easier.  The books are by Jeff VanderMeer and are called the Southern Reach trilogy if you want to check them out instead.  I suggest seeing the movie first and avoiding the inevitable disappointment of an adaptation falling short of the original.